Projects

We study problems at the intersection of Sports Analytics and current research in Statistics, Machine Learning, and Visualization. Using innovative methods, we get novel inferences from big data sets, such as SportVu NBA optical tracking data.

Novel Player Metrics

Expected Possession Value, Counterpoints and many more

Methodology for Sports Analytics

Tools and theory for intelligent analysis of big data

Evaluating Team Strategy

Play detection, ball movement, resource allocation

About

XY Research originated at Harvard University in 2012. Professors Luke Bornn and Kirk Goldsberry had an idea to start a new sports analytics research group consisting largely of graduate students in Statistics and Computer Science. By early 2013, the group had 6 core members; we’ve been collaborating ever since.

Like just about everything in the 21st century, sports are becoming increasingly analytical, increasingly data-oriented, and increasingly technological. Our mission is to advance the state of sports analytics by applying emerging methods from statistics, computer science, machine learning and visualization. We believe that as sports race headlong into their own version of the big data era, sports analytics must become more sophisticated and more scientifically rigorous.

Our projects aim to demonstrate how new forms of sports intelligence emerge via the proper integration of data, science, and communication. Our current work focuses on basketball and soccer, but we have experience working in hockey, golf, football, baseball and other sports as well. As you can see below, the members have unique backgrounds that combine to form a product greater than the sum of our individual parts.

Media

Papers

Media

Papers

Media

Luke Bornn

Sacramento, California

Dr. Luke Bornn earned his PhD in
Statistics from the University of British
Columbia in 2012. He subsequently held a
professorship in the Harvard Statistics
Department before returning to Vancouver
in 2015. He is currently Vice President of
Strategy and Analytics for the Sacramento
Kings as well a statistics professor at
Simon Fraser University in Vancouver,
Canada.
. Personal
website.

Dan Cervone

Los Angeles, California

Dr. Dan Cervone is a Senior Analyst in Research and Development with the LA Dodgers. He was a Moore Sloan
Data Science Fellow at New York
University and completed a PhD in
Statistics from Harvard in 2015. Personal website.

Alex D'Amour

Dr. Alex D'Amour is the Neyman Visiting Assistant Professor in the Statistics Department at UC Berkeley. He holds a PhD in Statistics at Harvard and studyies foundational issues in model misspecification and network statistics. Personal website.

Alex Franks

Seattle, Washington

Dr. Alex Franks is a Moore/Sloan Data Science and WRF Innovation in Data Science Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Washington. In addition to his work in sports, Alex's research is on multivariate analysis and statistical applications to biology. He earned a PhD in Statistics in 2015 from Harvard. Personal website.

Kirk Goldsberry

Austin, Texas

Dr. Kirk Goldsberry got his
PhD in Geography at UC-Santa Barbara in
2007. After stints as a professor at
Michigan State and Harvard, Kirk left
academia to pursue sports full-time in
2013. He has worked as a writer and
analyst at ESPN and Grantland, and currently works for the San Antonio Spurs as Vice President for Strategic Research. Personal website.

Andy Miller

Boston, Massachusetts

Andy Miller is a PhD student in Computer Science at Harvard and innovator in applying machine learning methods to sports and other spatiotemporal data. Personal website.